XFCE Ask (XFCE panel plugin)

A small XFCE panel plugin for quick one-off questions to any OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions endpoint. Type a question in the panel entry and press Enter; the answer shows in a GTK popover.

Works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including local/self-hosted ones. If your endpoint does not require auth, leave the API key blank.

License: MIT (see LICENSE).

Behavior

• Enter: send the current prompt.
• Follow-ups are state-based: if the popover is still open, the next Enter is treated as a follow-up (limited context is kept); closing the popover ends the session.

Build

Dependencies (dev headers): gtk3, libxfce4panel, libsoup-3, json-glib, libsecret.

Arch:

sudo pacman -S xfce4-panel gtk3 libsoup3 json-glib libsecret pkgconf

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libxfce4panel-2.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libsoup-3.0-dev libjson-glib-dev libsecret-1-dev pkg-config

Fedora:

sudo dnf install xfce4-panel-devel gtk3-devel libsoup3-devel json-glib-devel libsecret-devel pkgconf

openSUSE:

sudo zypper install xfce4-panel-devel gtk3-devel libsoup-3_0-devel json-glib-devel libsecret-devel pkgconf-pkg-config

Then build:

make

Install

sudo make install
xfce4-panel -r

By default, the Makefile auto-detects install paths from pkg-config. Override if needed:

# User-local install (no sudo)
make PREFIX=$HOME/.local install

# Explicit system install
sudo make PREFIX=/usr install

# Fedora/lib64 systems
sudo make LIBDIR=/usr/lib64 install

AUR

If you use Arch Linux or a derivative thereof use:

• AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xfce4-panel-xfce-ask-git

Pre-built Packages

Download .deb or .rpm from the Releases page.

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install ./xfce-ask_*.deb

Fedora:

sudo dnf install ./xfce-ask-*.rpm

Dependencies are installed automatically.

Configure

Right-click the plugin → Properties:

• Endpoint: e.g. https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions
• Model: e.g. gpt-4o-mini
• Temperature
• API key: stored in the system keyring (per-endpoint)

Debugging

The plugin writes a debug log to:

• ~/.cache/openai-ask/openai-ask.log

Logging is disabled by default. Enable it by starting your session/panel with XFCE_ASK_DEBUG=1.

Tail it while testing:

tail -f ~/.cache/openai-ask/openai-ask.log

Other Useful Projects

• A lightweight speech to text implementation Auriscribe
• A full featured AI application ChatGTK
• A Markdown notes application for your system tray TrayMD